Instagram is one of the top-performing social media platforms for user engagement. Research has shown that more Instagram users pay attention to things they see on their feed. As a graphic designer, it may be very helpful to use Instagram to get an audience who may be interested in your business. If your business relies heavily on visual materials such as images and mini-videos, using Instagram as one of your main social media apps will get your more engagement. According to Mark Alvarado, a known graphic designer, there are several benefits to using Instagram for business:
- Instagram has a wide variety of audience, more of which belong to the younger generation. If your target audience belongs to the 18-35 age group, Instagram is an ideal social media platform.
- Instagram has been proven to be one of the social media platforms with good engagement, which can help you send your message across to promote your business.
- Instagram is simple and easy-to-use, it has a simple interface that makes gaining followers and interacting with them in an efficient way.
What are some graphic design apps to help you make outstanding visual materials for your Instagram page? Mark Alvarado suggests the top five best tools to use.
5 Graphic Design Apps That Will Help You Increase Your Business’s Instagram Presence
1. Canva
Canva is a great app to use as a startup business. They have hundreds of free templates to use for every type of business. Restaurants, blogs, beauty shops, tech companies can benefit from their simple layouts which are beautiful and interesting. A lot of these layouts can be customized according to content you prefer as well. They also offer a premium version where you have access to more photo layouts and access to a lot of stock photos as a background for your Instagram posts.
2. Layout
Layout is a great app to use if you prefer to make collage images on Instagram. This app can help you fix the size, parts of the collage image, as well as edit the separate photos in each part of the collage image. There are also good-looking filters that you can apply to a single photo or in the overall picture. This is an ideal app if you are a business that wants to showcase a lot of pictures in one. This may also be good for businesses that want to show before and after results such as cosmetic centers, interior design, and construction.
3. Hootsuite Enhance
Hootsuite Enhance is an overall photo editing and engagement improvement application for Instagram. It has powerful features to help you edit photos according to your liking, and also help in the posting and scheduling times to create better engagement from your followers. Often, it is difficult to make the task of creating content and scheduling content coordinated altogether. With the use of Hootsuite Enhance, you can do it all in one app without having to transfer your photos to another device. You can easily connect your Instagram account and Hootsuite will do the majority of the work for you. This app can save you time if you do not have a social media manager to help you out.
4. Boomerang
Have you seen those GIF-looking photos that swing from playing and then going back to reverse? You have probably seen a photo made in Boomerang. It isn’t only what millennials use for their posts, they can also provide you with great engagement when it comes to showing product features. For example, if you own a product based business, you can create a Boomerang photo by showcasing its features. Since it is less professional-looking, it may be ideal to add Boomerang photos in your Instagram stories instead of your regular feed. You can opt to install Boomerang separately or add the plugin from Instagram.
5. Captiona
Do you have a photo or video where you wish you can easily add captions? Captiona is the perfect app for that. All you have to do is install the app and retrieve the photo or video from your device. It is known that people tend to engage more in photos or videos when they can see short captions from beginning to end of the multimedia. What’s good about this app is that they can also provide suggestions about on-trend captions depending on the topic of your content. You may use their search engine by providing a keyword and they will come up with great suggestions to create the captions on your post.
Instagram marketing is a powerful tool for businesses that rely on visuals. Whether you are a startup or a seasoned business, you can benefit from Instagram by using these great tools. Mark Alvarado suggests installing and experimenting which ones best suit your photo and video marketing.